We're coming live from Philadelphia Pa, or more accurately Valley Forge, as we ponder this question: are we actually going to be on a billboard in Times Square?

Anyways, here's a few odds and sods from this trip

-Saw "Thank You For Not Smoking" Saturday night. Not bad, but the main thing is I got to see the infamous trailer for "Flight 93" or whatever it is, the 9/11 movie. Let's just say it's a little weird to see it. Or more like total buzz kill. There you are watching a trailer for frothy English comedy, then quirky indie movie, and then, blammo, you watch footage of a plane slam into the WTC. Not exactly happy fun time. And judging by all the people shaking their heads at the end of the trailer, I'm guessing this movie is gonna be one big huge, errr, bomb.

And I'm also probably not the only person to think this, but while I do think something happened on that flight, why do I have a sneaking suspicious it didn't go down as it was made out to go down? Not that I don't blame anyone for "the myth" becoming the reality-- God only knows we needed one uplifting story out the whole thing, but I just have a feeling something else happened.

-I hate to say it, but whenever I get off a flight from San Francisco, I always find myself going "oh, look, they have wi fi access here." Or "oh, look, they have coffee shops." Or "oh, wow, there's somebody speaking spanish." Which is silly because there's no reason why all of those things wouldn't be here. But living in San Fran makes you think that civilization does indeed end once you live the Bay Area. I even found myself thinking those things in New York, which is totally dumb because New York pretty much kicks everyone's ass in that regards

-Speaking of New York, as I was walking around I was trying to think just why it is that the people look so different than they do back home. First thing I noticed is that everyone is pale. Like not seen a tan in years pale. I think people in Cali have tans just because after awhile, it becomes part of your complexion, like a stain or something. Second thing is while I certainly can't say people in NY are less stylish (SF is particularly not a very stylish city), there is a certain feeling of moldiness in a lot of the clothes. Like moths are a couple of days away from setting home in them.

-I was driving back from New York and somewhere on the Pa Turnpike (yep, I was driving). Anyways, I was going somewhere between 75-80, pretty much what everyone else was. All the while being tailgated. Now there's one thing about being tailgated when you're already going fairly above the speed limit. But the thing that really bugged was the fact that there was nobody really going on either side of me (I was in the middle lane of a three lane highway) so that the car who was behind me could easily go either to my right or to my left and pass me, but they refused to. The fact that they didn't made me actually want to slow down more just to force the issue. And to piss him off. Finally, after about fifteen miles of this, the guy in the car made a move-- to my right, the slow lane. Where they promptly got stuck behind a slow moving pick up truck. And to where the driver once again refused to pass. So for all that tailgating, the dude or dudette got stuck behind some pick up truck and wound up getting passed by everyone. And all this because they couldn't figure out to pass anybody.

-We tried to take the Staten Island ferry coming back from New York today, but it turns out you can no longer put a car on the ferry. 9/11, terrorism and all that. Which strikes me as pretty frickin' stupid. Like by somehow getting rid of one way into the city, they have now made New York safer. Despite the fact anybody could take a car and pull up somewhere and blow the car up with a car bomb. And I hear they're thinking about building a new tunnel but one of the reasons why they won't is because the fear of terrorism. Now if there's any place that has legitimate concerns about terrorism, it would be New York. And not just because of 9/11. But do we still have to be complete chicken-shits about it still?

-And speaking of security, I travelled this time with full accomponient (yeah, I know I fucked up the spelling) of electronic equipment-- iPod, lap top, carry on suitcase. Could security not be a bigger pain in the ass? I have to take off my jacket, my shoes, unhinge the iPod from my ears, put my backpack in one tray, my suitcase in another, and my laptop in another. That's about five little trays right there. And because there were so many people going through security and they were trying to rush them through (actually, they did a really good job of rushing everyone through), it's that much more of a pain in the ass when you're trying to put everything together and you got security types telling you to move along and get out of the way.